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Castro, Harris, other 2020 hopefuls join forces to blast Trump at migrant detention site in Florida

Some 2,700 teenage migrants are being held at a converted military base in Homestead, Fla., drawing a five Democratic presidential candidates.

Julián Castro speaks to news media outside the migrant detention center in Homestead, Fla.. Behind him are two other presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg (left) and John Hickenlooper, each in a shirt and tie.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Five Democratic presidential hopefuls joined in a show of force Friday at a converted military base where 2,700 migrant teens are being detained.

Texan Julián Castro joined Sen. Kamala Harris of California and the others in denouncing President Donald Trump's treatment of migrants as inhumane and demanding closure of the nation's first for-profit juvenile detention facility.

Castro lamented that in the Trump era the public has become "desensitized" to such treatment. "If a parent in a suburb was treating their child the way that some of these children are being treated in these detention facilities," he said, "Child Protective Services could come in and take that child away."

Harris called it "human rights violation being committed by our government."

"This administration has no humanity," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. "What will it take for President Trump to have an ounce of compassion? What will it take for the Republican Party to have an inch of spine?"

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper joined the group visit, a show of force intended to project unity even in the aftermath of this week's contentious televised debates.

"You see here a lot of people who may have been competing for the last couple of days but are absolutely on the same side and united," Buttigieg said, "when it comes to the way a country that believes itself to be the greatest in the world ought to handle the least among us, the most endangered, the most vulnerable."

Castro called it outrageous that the administration and the company that runs the site next to a reserve air base south of Miami refused entry to the candidates, including those currently in Congress — Harris and Gillibrand. He accused them of hiding the intolerable conditions inside.

"We were stonewalled today by an administration and a private contractor that does not want us to see what is happening behind the walls," Castro said. "And it makes you wonder: What the hell are they hiding?"

Beto O'Rourke, the former three-term El Paso congressman, visited the site Thursday, as did Sen. Bernie Sanders. They were among 20 candidates in Miami for the first primary debates of the 2020 election campaign.

Immigration policy was a central topic both nights. Castro, a former housing secretary and San Antonio mayor, has sought to make immigration a signature issue. So has O'Rourke. They tussled in Wednesday night's debate, with Castro criticizing his rival for refusing to join his demand to eliminate the federal crime of crossing the border without permission.

Sandi Strickland, 73, a retired flight attendant who lives in Coral Gables, Fla., joined dozens of other protesters on Friday, as she has a half dozen times before. She was holding a baby Donald Trump balloon another protester had given her.

"It really goes back to Trump. He's the one that takes children away from parents," she said.

She was pleased to see the candidates visit: "It puts more pressure on the government. When the politicians come out it brings a lot more attention."

Strickland is partial to Joe Biden, Harris and Sen. Elizabeth Warren but wasn't ready to pick a favorite yet.

"I would vote for Frankenstein over Trump at this point," she said.

On Friday, Castro was the last of the five candidates to take his turn before dozens of news cameras.

Harris and Gillibrand left without waiting to hear him, though he seemed unperturbed by the snub.

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Harris emerged from Thursday night's debate as the clear winner after commanding the stage and delivering devastating blows against front-runner Joe Biden over his civil rights record, nostalgia for Southern segregationist senators he'd worked with decades ago, and his resistance at the time to federally mandated school busing.

Author Marion Williamson, one of the more obscure candidates, showed up after Castro and his group had appeared outside the complex.

Trump's zero tolerance policy of charging all adult migrants with a crime for crossing the border without permission has triggered an ongoing family separation crisis, because federal courts do not allow prolonged detention of minors in the sort of jails where crime suspects are held.

To advocates who hold daily vigils at Homestead, and to the presidential contenders who lent their voices, there is little distinction between such jails and the Homestead detention facility.

Demonstrators chanted "Shut it down!" and held signs that read "Don't look away!" and "The outrage of humanity can melt I.C.E.!"

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Danielle Levine Cava, whose district includes Homestead, was granted access earlier Friday for a rare visit by local officials. She reported that nothing was amiss in terms of physical comforts. Despite blazing heat outside, she said, the buildings and tents are air conditioned and comfortable, and the children have access to hygiene products.

Yet older migrants are kept in barracks-like dorms, some with more than a 100 beds.

She and others warned of the lasting emotional trauma of their detention. Some teens have been kept at Homestead for six or nine months awaiting placement with a relative.

"These children are physically cared for," Cava said. "It is an antiseptic facility. I saw the children. I was not allowed to speak with them. I saw the cafeterias. I saw the dorms, thinking, you know, what is important is not so much what's happening outside. It's what's happening inside, that we cannot know these children have suffered."

Todd J. Gillman. Todd has been Washington Bureau Chief since 2009, six years after joining the bureau.
Before that he covered East Texas, City Hall and politics. He started at The Dallas Morning News in 1989 as an intern. He has been elected twice to the White House Correspondents’ Association board, with a term ending in 2020.
Todd has a Master in Public Policy from Harvard and a BA from Johns Hopkins in international studies.